Wake Up
by Strader
Summary: What if Alma Wade lived a normal life? It’s a question that’s been asked many times before. But what if that life wasn’t necessarily perfect? Or even necessarily real? Any reviews appreciated.
1. Foreword

Foreword

I've always hated forewords.

No, seriously. Nothing is worse than getting ready to read something, and then finding - surprise! - something in the way. So I will hold the reader blameless should they choose to simply skip my long-winded introduction and go right to the meat of the story.

Still with me? Good.

Alma Wade, as a character, is difficult to write. So many people have done so - it's hard to bring fresh life to that most enigmatic of characters. I had a lot of apprehensions about posting this. The fear (hah) that people wouldn't get it. But ultimately, there can be no success without risk. Which is why I posted it for your perusal.

I would like to give special thanks to Matthew Medrala, AKA "Alardem", for helping me edit my draft and giving me adivce. Without your help, I probably wouldn't have made it this far. Thank you.

Any and all feedback, of course, would be greatly appreciated. After all, criticism is essential to our writing technique.


	2. Wake Up

Wake Up, a F.E.A.R. Fanfic  
By Strader

"Hope is a waking dream."  
_- Aristotle_

I could see him. A man kneeling on the floor of a small cell. He twitched slightly, and I knew that he knew I was there, knew he could hear my subtle whispers from the darkness.

I walked up to the door, my feet leaving wet footprints as I went, the lights flickering as I passed by. I went up to the window and looked in.

"Alma!"

My vision went foggy when I heard that. Those words hadn't come from that man's lips. But my sight returned to normal in a few seconds.

I opened the door, walked up to him.

"Kill them," I whispered to him, a single, simple command. "Kill them all."

He reared up and screamed, his voice coming out distorted.

"Alma! Wake up!"

I screamed aloud as the vision around me blurred and warped, bending in on itself as the real world began to leak in. My scream and his blended together as my sight twisted, the world around me shattering like glass. Slowly, my vision began to return to normal. Through the haze, I could see Jonathan sitting up in bed, looking at me worriedly.

"Another nightmare?" he asked, stroking my long black hair out of my face. I nodded wordlessly, trying hard not to cry.

I've been having these nightmares for some time now. Always one of two things. Usually, it's me trapped inside a dark, tiny cell; cold, dirty, naked, and surrounded by black fluid that presses against me and fills my lungs. It's that, or me as a little girl again, stalking one big, empty hall after another, reaching out only to kill people in ways so horrible it makes me cringe to think about it. And now this, with me contacting this man and making him kill for me. But no matter which version of my dream I'm in, no matter where I am, I'm always terribly alone, trapped, and terribly, terribly empty except for a cold rage…

Nightmares…so vivid I can't tell the difference between them and reality.

I used to just dismiss them as just dreams. I mean, who hasn't had nightmares? But, lately…they've kept growing more and more common. Sometimes I doze off only to find myself trapped in that watery cell, or to find myself wandering around a bleak slum or a blood-drenched hallway, alone, always alone. Even worse, sometimes I see things moving out of the corner of my eye, but turn to find nothing there, or hear whispers from the darkness when I'm all alone.

I haven't told John about that yet. I don't want to make him any more worried about me. And I don't want him to think I'm crazy.

"I love you," he whispered, holding me in his arms. He kissed me on my forehead, continuing to hold me and whisper into my ear before we both fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

***

I awoke late from my slumber to find John already gone off to work. As I yawned and stretched out my arms, I remembered that my sister, Alice, would be coming over later today to take me to the spa. I was looking forward to the relaxation. Looking at the clock, I saw that I had about an hour until she arrived.

Throwing on some clothes, I walked downstairs and made myself some breakfast, whistling cheerfully to myself. As I was putting the dishes in the sink, however, the lights flickered, once, twice, and the radio emitted a short, sharp static burst. Startled, I dropped my bowl to the floor, where it shattered.

I stared at the pieces as they lay on the white linoleum. Suddenly, without warning, everything blurred around me. My head snapped up, and I looked around. I was no longer in my house, but in a long hallway, with blood dripping down from the ceiling. At the far end of the hallway, I saw someone. I rubbed my eyes to try and get rid of the blurriness, and then looked again.

It was me that I was looking at, me as a small child. I stared at myself…at her…in shock.

"Accept the truth," she whispered.

"What truth?" I asked, my voice hoarse. Somehow, I couldn't manage more than a whisper myself.

"No hope," she said. "You have no hope".

She disintegrated then into a black cloud, falling away into nothingness as I watched. Then, without warning, a flash, and I was back in my kitchen.

"Oh, god."

I'd never had a hallucination before. Not like this. But I'd just been talking to myself…literally. I had to wonder – maybe I was crazy.

A knock at the door shook me out of my thoughts.

"Alma?"

It was my sister's voice.

"C…coming," I managed to choke out. I took a few moments to collect myself, then strode to the door and swung it open to find Alice standing on the porch, her hands in her pockets. She looked at me strangely, her eyes narrowing.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "You're even paler than usual," she said, laughing slightly. I self-consciously touched my cheek. I'd always been very pale, ever since I was a child. I'd been teased about it a lot back in school, and Johnathan, for his part, used to call me "his little ghost" back when we were dating. We'd often laughed about it in bed together.

"Yes…yes, I'm fine," I said a little quickly, hoping she wouldn't notice how obviously out of it I was.

Her eyes narrowed again, then she seemed to shrug. "Come on, sis," she said. "You need to relax, and I've got just the thing."

"Lead the way," I said, pulling on my coat.

***

A few hours later, having finished our day at the spa, we headed for home in Alice's car. I was feeling more at peace than I had in a long time – the people there could do wonders. With my nightmares a constant problem, I've often tried to avoid sleep at all costs, but I felt so at ease that I let my guard down, and slowly drifted off, Alice still chattering to me about our day.

I should have known better.

***

"Breathe!"

"Come on, Make her push!"

Waves of agony like fire, the only thing I can see through the haze of medication the surgical light in front of me. I've been through this one dream a thousand times, and yet each time is just as agonizing as the first.

I do what they say, I breathe, and I push, and eventually, the pain stops. I'm vaguely aware of wanting to see the thing that has just crawled out of me. I reach out to grasp it, but a man snatches it away. I look up to see his face. It's my father, Harlan.

"Nooooooo!" I scream, my voice coming out distorted and warped through the fog of morphine. "Where are you taking him?!"

Harlan ignores me, smiles at the baby.

"You will be a god among men."

I shoot bolt upright in the car seat. "NOOOOOO!!!"

If Alice hadn't been buckled into her seat, I could swear she would have jumped six feet in the air, leaving her skin behind. The car swerved and entered the other lane, turning 180 degrees before Alice grabbed the steering wheel and put us back on course.

"Jesus Christ," she demanded, "Are you trying to kill me? What the hell?!"

"I'm…sorry, Alice. I…had another nightmare."

"Some nightmare!" snorted Alice. Her tone of voice was odd – she wasn't the kind of person who was ordinarily given to such a sharp tone. She was normally a very nice person – seeing her this worked up was disturbing.

"Damn it, Alma…what's wrong with you?"

I didn't respond, and stared out the window. We didn't talk again for the rest of the ride home.

***

I'd just gotten out of the shower when the doorbell rang again. I ran to the door and flung it open to find all three of them standing there: Alice, Harlan, and Johnathan, all of them looking concerned.

"Surprise," said Alice in a faux-cheery voice.

"Alice…dad…you…what…" I spluttered.

"Consider this an intervention," intoned Harlan. "We're worried about you."

I fell silent and allowed them to lead me to a couch. An intervention, of all things. I felt like I was on a talk show. I wanted to giggle crazily at that thought, but I knew that that kind of laughter was a prelude to crazed, uncontrollable sobbing. I bit my lips and tried to contain it.

Harlan sat down next to me. I allowed him to put my head on his shoulders and pat it gently.

"Alma, you have to tell us what's going on."

I looked up through suddenly-heavy eyes, and at the corner of my vision, saw my child-self again, standing near Alice, looking on at the scene with a slight smile. As I looked, she turned to black ash and faded away. Nobody else in the room had seen her. Of course.

Tell them what was going on. Hah.

"I've told you, dad," I said weakly, "nightmares…"

Johnathan kneeled in front of me and took my hands in his.

"I know," he said, "but there has to be something else you're not telling us. Something about the nightmares you don't want to admit."

This time, I couldn't contain myself from laughing, and true to my prediction, I quickly broke down into sobs, burying my face into Harlan's shoulder in a vain attempt to hide it. It took me a minute or so to compose myself.

I had to tell them. I couldn't hold out like this. Not forever.

"I…the nightmares…they're not just when I sleep," I said. I had to force each word out like they were made of lead. "They're when I'm awake, too."

Alice, Harlan, and Johnathan all narrowed their eyebrows simultaneously. I wanted to laugh at that unintentionally-comic sight, too, but I forced down the urge.

"I see…myself. As a kid. Talking to…me…" I trailed off, unable to force myself to speak any more. I looked down at the floor.

Harlan put his hand under my chin and made me look up to meet his eyes.

"Alma, there are a lot of people who have problems like this. There are people, treatments that can help. You don't have to be alone. Just let us take you to the hospital."

The hospital. The HOSPITAL.

I looked up to find my living room bending and shifting like it was a reflection in a pool, the sympathetic faces around me refracting and twisting away from me like so many kaleidoscopic snakes. I opened my mouth and gaped, but no sound came out.

Harlan stared at me with eyes suddenly gone cold.

"Take her back to the Vault," he said.

I screamed aloud and sagged backwards into the couch as the room exploded into blinding whiteness, my sight shattering into so many shards of broken glass and whirling away from me.

***

I was alone, on my knees in a large white emptiness. I was alone, naked, and covered in slime and filth, caked on my body, dripping from my hair. I wanted to vomit, but couldn't. I didn't even know where I was.

I looked up to find myself surrounded. In front of me was my child-self, staring at me with that slight smile of hers…mine? To her left, a man in a military outfit, normal except for his pallid flesh and the empty sockets where his eyes should have been. To her right, a second man, his mouth and leather jacket stained with blood. Even through my fear and misery, something about him looked familiar. No, I recognized him – the man from the dream I'd had this morning. The man on the left, the man without eyes, opened his mouth and spoke.

"You don't even know who you are."

I cried then, sobs wracking my pale frame. But the three of them looked on without a trace of remorse or pity in their faces.

"Who am I, then?" I managed. "Tell me!"

The man on the right began to speak then.

"They've kept you here for so long, mother," he said, the bloody expression on his face a grotesque mockery of a smile. "Chained in darkness. Unable to escape. But I will set you free. Soon."

Mother?

The girl in the centre, the sick parody of myself, stepped forward then, and "I" began to talk.

"It's a lie. That world, the people you know…they're a lie. You made them. You created them to fill the emptiness in that heart of yours." She traced a finger down my breast, hovering over my pounding heart.

"But dad, Alice…Johnathan!" I choked on the words in my panic.

"Your father left you to die," said the man with the bloody face.

"Your sister doesn't know you exist," said his eyeless companion.

"And Johnathan," said that girl-self who I wanted nothing more at that moment than to kill, "doesn't even exist."

"But he loves me!" I moaned, writhing in an attempt to escape her, to escape the words that cut like knives into my very soul.

"But he isn't real," she replied. "You created him…"

"Noooo!" I screamed, my vision turning red, then black with rage. "Damn you!"

I lashed out then with my mind, like I had in my dreams. Lashed out with waves of untold energy and tore all three images to black dust, lashed out at everything around me until the blank whiteness crumbled and oozed away, replaced by an empty, sightless void.

"No hope," the girl said as I tore her apart, "you have no hope."

But even as I attacked, their words struck home with the force of hammers. Memories flooded into my head unbidden, memories of being taken from my home, of being forced to wait in my cell for years upon empty years, of being forced to give birth to genetic experiments…twice. I knew that what they'd said was true. But I couldn't admit it to myself.

I sobbed as I attacked, crying out to everyone I could think of – to Johnathan, to dad, to Alice, even to god – to just let me wake up, to free me from this horrible nightmare. Eventually, exhausted, I collapsed to my knees, unable to even cry any more. I could feel the walls that had closed in on me, feel the fluid that pressed against my skin and filled my every pore. I knew where I was. That cell I'd spent so many nights tossing and turning thinking about.

"Wake up, Alma," I gritted, my voice somehow carrying even though the tarry fluid. "Wake UP."

Suddenly, the dark waters drained away, leaving me dripping with ooze and grime as I kneeled on the floor of the cell. A blinding light cut through the blackness.

"Alma…"

It was my father's voice. Getting to my feet, I moved towards it, towards him.

I didn't recognize the room. Behind me, my cell. In front of me I could see Harlan, standing behind a control panel, gaping at me like I'd come back from the dead. To my left, I could see a door, with a man in a mask and goggles looking in through a window. No…more than that…he was my son. He was the baby I'd given birth to in that one dream of pain and separation and morphine, the baby who'd been taken from me by Harlan.

_Harlan_. I remembered everything now. What he'd done to me. How he'd taken everything from me; my life, my childhood, even the baby who'd never known and never would know his mother, the child who was even now staring coldly at me through the window, seeing nothing more than a freak standing before him. I was enraged, more than I could ever remember being. And I was powerful, more than I could ever have imagined.

I didn't even say anything to him. I just reached out with my power and seized hold of him. He screamed as I forced him to his knees and boiled the flesh off his bones, kept on going even as his blood sprayed all over the room and covered the window, kept on going until there was nothing left of him but a skeleton lying amidst the blood and gore that was all that was left of him. And then I fled, walking down the hallway out of the room, shedding tears as I went.

I knew that this was real. I knew that the nightmares I'd had were my bitter reality. And I knew that "I" had been right all along.

No hope. I have no hope.


End file.
